Construction, Destruction… What’s The Difference?

For those of you who have ever taken a hammer to a wall and have been given free reign to destroy it entirely, you will know that it is a very fun and exciting experience.

The past two weeks at Samaritan’s Purse have been filled with these experiences of destroying drywall, floors, and ceilings in the homes that have been wrecked by the past three hurricanes that have gone through Louisiana. Black mold grows everywhere in these houses, so in order to be livable again, we turn most houses into skeleton houses so that good drywall can be put in once more.

The people of Louisiana are strong and resilient, but want to be heard more than anything. At each house we visited, we were given accounts of where the homeowners were when the hurricanes hit, what it was like, and how bad it was for them. Some only got heavy rain, other homeowners evacuated, but most had to stay inside their houses for the duration of both Laura and Delta because they had no other place to go.

For two weeks, my life consisted of being the hands and feet of Jesus and using them to tear down the moldy houses, throw away furniture and other items, and pick up trash in someone’s front yard. These homes were destroyed and most everything inside had to be thrown away. But a house full of smelly, moldy objects is still a house full of memories for someone else.

And here we were, sent to destroy it all.

At first, I questioned this. A lot. We were here to help. To minister to people and to save their homes, but this wasn’t helping. This was throwing away everything they owned and forcing them to get new walls and doors and floors because we’d taken them all out.

How was that ministry?

It was all put into place by a kind man called Mike.

We spent four days working on Mike’s house; he bought us Chick-Fil-A in return for helping out so much with his home. Mike wanted all of the drywall taken out of his home. Whether it was walls or ceilings, it was going to be out.

In a two level house with like… ten rooms (I didn’t count but there were a lot), let’s just say we had our work cut out for us. That’s why it took us four days and help from another team to finish it. But that’s not the point.

Mike told us that it had rained inside of his house. Somewhere in the roof there was a hole and rainwater got in through it and ended up raining all down the walls inside. Thankfully, there was not too much mold, but the point still stood- all of it was to come out.

So we set to work demolishing everything, but I was confused. Mike had asked us to take out his entire house, and he still saw it as a blessing.He had a wife and kids that lived in that big house with him, and it was still a blessing to have it entirely demolished?

I just couldn’t get my head around the idea that we were literally a relief team. And relief teams come to take out the things that other people need to be relieved of.

And in our case, it was the things inside a home causing problems. In fact, we were told many times over the past two weeks, “You all have been such a relief to me.”

Isn’t that interesting? Destruction of some things leads to relief concerning others.

It took me a while to see, but that’s what Jesus wanted me to learn this time. God is all about taking things away from us that are unhealthy, unneeded, and dangerous. He destroys the things in our lives that aren’t good for us -takes out the walls and ceilings- just so he can rebuild us as new creations.

He takes out the floors, too. One day on a site we were listening to worship music, and I asked the Lord, “If you were here physically, what would you be doing right now?”

I always enjoy asking God those questions, because his answers are so much fun to hear. He told me he’d be taking up the floor with me.

But at that point, we had already taken up the floor. A very nice wood finish and underneath it was some kind of green tarp and underneath that was another rotting wood layer and underneath that was the foundation.

But we didn’t know that yet, so we were walking around on the green tarp, the second layer, none the wiser.

However, God knows everything, and the instant his sentence was over about taking up the floor, my SP team leader Greg walks in and says, “Okay, so we’re going to take up the next layer of floor!” (The green tarp, in this case, and then we discovered the wood underneath so we took that up too.)

I love that God knows everything.

I asked the Lord while we were taking up the final layer of rotting wood why it was that he would be doing that, and he said, “Because I want to get to the foundation of your life, so I can be the only thing you build on.”

God is pretty cool like that.

God can also be seen everywhere, no matter what happens or where you are. And sometimes, you just need to ask.

For me, God was found in that house and in the flooring, but he was also found in the people I worked with. My Samaritan’s Purse team leaders, Greg and Thecla, are amazing. They are also reading this blog. Hi!

(Me, Greg, and Thecla standing in front of the Samaritan’s Purse truck.)

But they were a gift to work with, because Greg and Thecla are wonderful, amazing people who awakened within me The Art of Missing Home, because they were like parents to the group of eighteen//nineteen year old girls who haven’t seen or felt home in many months. Leaving home was hard and I never realized exactly how hard it was until I had a home to miss.

In this case, it was Greg, Thecla, and a group of eight other girls who I call my family. To both my parents who are reading this– I’ve hit the missing home mark!

Yay?

My life has been a lot of uprooting recently. If you all haven’t heard, some of my people caught covid while we were in Louisiana and we have been in quarantine for mostly the past week. My family (squad) has been separated, and my sisters (teammates) taken from me since all of them except for me and one other girl have caught covid. So there goes my third ever definition of ‘home’. I thought I would be okay since- you know, if I have my family with me I’ll be okay, but they’re gone now in a separate quarantining place and I’m all alone.

I miss them, but I will see them again after Thanksgiving break. With all this moving around, I feel like I don’t have a place to call home anymore, since the people who make it home are gone.

I’ve been trying to understand the definition of nomad because that’s exactly what I am- a member of a people or tribe that has no permanent abode but moves about from place to place.

I am part of a people with technically no permanent abode. And while I am loving it…. I really miss home. The destruction of my life as I knew it and the uprooting of everything I know took place when I left home for the first time.

Surrendering my concept of home has been hard, especially considering that destruction of the things I hold dear has to come to pass.

In the book of Joshua, in chapter seven, Achan from the tribe of Judah took some of the things that were devoted to the Lord. In the sieging of the land the Lord had promised to the Israelites, the things from the land had to be destroyed in order to give them to the Lord.

I have been learning a lot about this particular thing, but in short, Achan had to be stoned to death, and the things he coveted were destroyed.

The same thing goes for me. Sometimes, I want things that aren’t always what the Lord wants for me. He wants me to give them over to him so that he can fully destroy them and take their place in order to give me even better things than what I wanted.

Sometimes, that looks like moving from place to place and having your squadmates taken from you, or your community in Lake Charles taken from you, or even just destroying the drywall of the walls in your home.

But other times, I hold things in my hand and I keep them and I don’t understand why the Lord is taking them from me until I remember that he has better things in store for me than what I have right now. This story he is writing right now is better than any I could ever come up with or tell, because he only creates masterpieces.

Jesus was a carpenter, after all, I would think he knows what he’s doing when he’s crafting something.

And whatever it is- even though I miss home and my teammates more than anything right now- I know it will be worth it in the end. Because God is good.

What has Jesus been building in your life?